The invention relates, in general, to firearms, and, in particular, to gas-operated, auto-loading firearms.
In auto-loading firearms, the cycle of operation is initiated by pressing the trigger. Once initiated, the entire cycle of operation is generally completed. In manually-operated firearms, on the other hand, the shooter is required to manually cycle the action of the firearm for the next round to load and be ready for firing. Manually-operated firearms are generally thought to be inherently more accurate than a similarly constructed auto-loading firearm due to the absence of recoiling parts during firing. Precision is often considered to have been traded off in favor of the convenience and speed of auto-loading.
Additionally, when an auto-loading firearm is fitted with a muzzle device for the purpose of suppressing the muzzle signature, there is often an increase in gas pressures and volumes that exit through the breech of the firearm during the automatic cycle of operation. These increases in gas pressure and volume at the breech can result in additional noise of the cycling of the action, and of gasses escaping through the breech. For these reasons, the manually-operated firearm is sometimes preferred over the auto-loading firearm, at the expense of the convenience of the auto-loading firearm.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,409,883 was issued on Oct. 18, 1983 to Edouard Nyst and is expressly incorporated by reference herein. The Nyst patent describes a rifle wherein the combustion gasses may be used to store energy in a spring and piston. When the gun user wishes the rifle's action to cycle, a latch mechanism on the forestock of the rifle may be pressed to thereby release the stored energy and cycle the rifle. The Nyst design may not be easily adapted to other weapons, such as handguns. Further, the Nyst design requires the user to operate both the trigger and a separate mechanism on the forestock.